It takes bravery to compete in college wrestling, and sophomore NJCAA wrestler Kendall Cummings needed every ounce of it when he decided he was not going to let a mamma grizzly bear maul his friend to death.

Last year, Cummings was out with his friends Brady Lowry, Gus Harrison, and Orrin Jackson in the Wyoming woods looking for shed antlers from elk, moose, and mule deer, which along with being a fun way to pass time in the woods, can also earn a college kid a few hundred dollars for a big pair of antlers.

The four buddies were out on the Bobcat-Houlihan Trail, which sits on the outskirts of Yellowstone when in the late afternoon, they decided to split up to cover more ground and meet back together on a large rock at the top of a hill.

Ryan Hockensmith at ESPN, detailing what would become a gruesome encounter, wrote that Brady turned around to warn Kendall not to step in this fresh pile of bear scat when what was likely a female grizzly bear, which can weigh around 500-pounds, slammed into him.

The impact from the bear knocked the young man over dozen yards, and she continued to swat at him as he rolled, "dribbling him" like a basketball, Hockensmith wrote.

Kendall was not about to let it happen, and after trying to use his voice to scare her away, he jumped on her back to distract her after she had managed to pin Brady up against a tree.

Then Kendall ran; as fast as he could. Grizzly bears can sprint over 30 miles per hour, and it wasn't even a few seconds before she had turned around and lept on top of him instead.

"I can't even express how grateful I am for him," Brady told Cowboy State Daily. "I don't know what I'm going to pay him back [sic], I don't. I owe him everything."

Grizzly bear attacks are extremely rare—8 in the last 150 years, with a risk rate of around 1 in 2.7 million.

Hunters and others who work in the wilderness say the only way to survive an attack like this is to play dead, which is exactly what Kendall did as soon as he realized he could do nothing else.

Kendall suffered horrific injuries, but Brady, who had had the better of it, managed to escape the scene, call 911, and meet up with their two friends who were unaware of what was happening. Eventually, the bear lost interest in the limp body of Kendall who stumbled to his feet and back down the trail where he met up with  Brady and the others. The two were eventually medically evacuated by helicopter.

At a trauma center in Billings, Montana, surgeons stitched and reconstructed Kendall's face and head, which the bear had repeatedly bit. Brady was taken to a less-equipped hospital in Powell, Wyoming, but was eventually transported to Billings, and to the same room as Kendall.

Brady's father Dallas drove all the way from Utah to Billings to marvel at the 21-year-old sophomore who was prepared to give all he could to rescue his son.

"You saved my son's life," he told Kendell.

"I would have rather died than have gotten away and known I could have helped," Kendell told him.

100 days after the attack, last January, Brady competed in an NJCAA wrestling meet while Kendall, not yet medically cleared to go back to the mat, cheered him on.

With friends like these, am I right?

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